


Thus With a Kiss, I Die

by MoonlightShines (Thatkillervibe)



Series: Killervibe Week 2020 [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, drama club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26001880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkillervibe/pseuds/MoonlightShines
Summary: When Nate Heywood comes down with mono, Caitlin convinces her best friend Cisco to step in for the lead in the school play.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West, Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon/Cindy Reynolds (mentioned)
Series: Killervibe Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1884334
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Thus With a Kiss, I Die

**Author's Note:**

> THIS ISN'T DONE. I'M SORRY.

Ever since Caitlin got cast as Juliet in the spring play, Cisco has found himself spending most of his after-school hours in the back of the drafty old auditorium. He turned the page of his Tolkien novel, propping his legs up on the back of the seat in front of him. Whoever said that drama club kids were chaotic in every high school was right. The CC High theatre troupe might as well be in a telenovela. The theatre teacher Mr. Stein had a seizure over the Winter break, so their eccentric physics teacher Miss Tracy had to take over the production, which really started the unravelling of this entire mess. She felt overwhelmed with the prospect of taking over an entire play for the first time, so she asked Cisco’s friend Barry if his girlfriend could help her with the directing.

Iris, who really was into journalism and not theatre, gave up her increasingly desperate pursuits to establish a school paper because _“I guess organizing classic tragedy is the closest I’ll get to writing something for the NY Times anyway.”_ Or something like that. It got better when Miss Tracy promised her creative licensing over the playbill. 

And then, as if that wasn’t enough, Nate Heywood was supposed to play the lead but he came down with mono, so now they were holding auditions for Romeo all over again, and Hartley Rathaway was really not having it. 

“Miss Tracy,” Hartley said, interrupting Ray Palmer’s third attempt at a soliloquy under Chester’s harsh lighting, stepping out of stage left with his script. “I don’t see why we’re bothering with this. I should be Romeo. I’m the most talented student here.”

Caitlin crossed her arms over her burgundy cardigan and scoffed. “That is a _bold_ claim.”

Cisco glanced up from his book to catch her eye, mutually unimpressed. 

He was here for the moral support of his best friend, and he hated to admit it but going home to listen to Dante’s piano rehearsing was worse than listening to this.

“But you’re Mercutio,” Miss Tracy said. 

“And what happens to Mercutio, huh?” Hartley pressed. “He dies!” He threw his script onto the splintered wooden floor. “Sounds a _lot_ like killing the gays to me!” 

_“Christ_ Rathaway,” Cisco muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “They both die!” he yelled from the back.

“But Mercutio is clearly queer coded and there was little debate in my casting, so I—”

Caitlin tilted her head to the side. “Since when was Mercutio queer coded?”

Rathaway rolled his eyes. “It is not my fault that everyone in this room is incapable of examining the subtext of Shakespeare!”

Ray Palmer pinched the bridge of his nose, looking just as awkward as he probably felt. “You know what, Miss Tracy? I don’t know if I can do this.” 

Cisco let out a sigh. He couldn’t blame him.

“He’s right,” Hartley said. “He can’t.”

The room went quiet as if the entire drama club silently accepted that their show was doomed. Then Iris tapped her nails against the table, whispering something to their teacher behind the paper of her colour-coded production notes. 

Miss Tracy twisted around from the auditorium’s front row. A pen was barely doing the job to hold up her frizzy blonde hair and she looked like she really needed to take a sabbatical or something. Cisco felt bad after thinking that. He did like her for physics. 

“Cisco? What about you?”

Cisco shielded his eyes when the spotlight landed on his face. “Dude, can you cut that out?” He squirmed, moving out of it so Chester wouldn’t blind him. “What _about_ me?”

“You should audition for Romeo!”

His jaw dropped and his grasp loosened from the spine of his paperback. The light came back as harsh as ever, and Cisco was seriously contemplating shimmying down until he got on his hands and knees to crawl out of this place. 

“No—I really shouldn’t!” 

“Why not? You’d be great at it!”

Iris nodded along like a stern bobble-head at the same time Rathaway started spluttering on the stage. “You’ve been to every rehearsal since we started,” she pointed out. “You know all the blocking.”

Eddie Thawne started to laugh. “Yeah, and your hair would totally work with the leotards, dude!” 

“He’s helped me run my lines,” Caitlin pipped up. Cisco narrowed his eyes at her. She wasn’t helping. Why was she _encouraging_ this?

“I’m not a good actor,” he insisted. His palms were starting to itch. He lifted his book for proof of his affinity for science as if that would scare away the arts or something. Which was ridiculous because The Hobbit is fantasy. Art at its peak. Cisco had no logic for the move, honestly, he was just desperate. “I’m kind of a nerd. I’d be in AV club but Felicity Smoak graduated last year so….” 

Ray Palmer perked up. “AV club sounds cool actually. We should ask Principal DeVoe to start it up again!”

Iris groaned. “Ray, clearly you don’t really want to be Romeo. You can help with the backstage crew, okay? Chester could use some help behind the scenes.” 

“I’m doing fine, actually! But cool, cool, I see criticism when I see it.” Chester’s voice floated down from the rafters, startling all of them. 

“I could help with backstage too!” Cisco added hastily. “You need a guy to help mics and stuff, right? I’d be way better at that, trust me.” 

Iris turned around to glare at him. 

“Cisco, stop playing. You’d get to be in a play with Caitlin, you two are already so close, it would make great authenticity for stage presence.”

“I can’t act though!” 

Miss Tracy rolled her eyes. “You are literally the most dramatic teenage boy in my class. You have given me countless monologues before to explain to me why you thought you deserved a 4.3 GPA.”

“It’s kind of true,” Patty Spivot, who was playing the nurse, muttered from the middle left aisle. 

“You should at least try!” Caitlin urged him, pouting her bottom lip to weaponize her convincing pleading look at him. 

Cisco grabbed his schoolbag, tired of yelling at them from across the auditorium. He flicked the hair out of his face as he broke into a light jog, his legs taking him faster down the incline to the front stage and the empty band pit. “You do realize this is literally the plot for High School musical right? A high school guy that really doesn’t want to be thrust into the limelight getting manipulated into joining the play anyway?” 

“Nobody is asking you to sing,” Iris scoffed. “And you are _no_ Zak Effron.”

_“Hey,”_ said Caitlin with a frown. 

Miss Tracy blew her falling bangs out of her eyes. “Drama King,” she said. “See? I told you. You act like you’re above this but you’re just as theatrical as the rest of them.” 

Caitlin met him at the base of the staircase.

“Cisco,” she said softly, meeting his eyes. “Would you do this for me? Please?” 

Dammnit. He has a rap sheet for stupid shit he’s done just to not disappoint Caitlin.

“I need drama on my transcript to build my applications. It doesn’t need to be _good,_ but if we don’t have a Romeo, we don’t have a _show.”_

She was right. His shoulders dropped and he gestured for Ray’s script with a defeated sigh. There goes his after-school reading. “Fine. Fine! I’ll audition.” 

Caitlin squealed, jumping in her mary janes to throw her arms around his neck. “Thank you! I’ll make it up to you, I swear!” 

“Yeah,” he grumbled into her neck, wrapping his arms around her too. “You better.” 

~.~ 

“Okay—” Miss Tracy said. Cisco stared down at the highlighted lines she wanted him to read from the beginning of the play. The entire cast settled back down into the front row of the auditorium, leaving Cisco to sweat alone on stage under Chester’s lights.

“This scene captures Romeo’s despair. He thinks he’ll never find love again, but little does he know that Juliet is right around the corner. Try sounding hopeless, like this entire thing has been keeping you up at night. Life sucks for you Cisco. AAaaaand go!” 

Cisco took a deep breath, still in denial that he was actually doing this. Dante was going to make fun of this until they were both senior citizens.

_“_ _Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,_

_Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!”_

Cisco cringed. “Oh god, William, buddy. There are a _lot_ of exclamation points here.” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Iris interrupted him. “Try not to think too hard about the old English. Just say it as it comes.” 

Cisco tried again. 

_“Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?_

_Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all._

_Here's much to do with hate, but more with love._

_Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!_

_O any thing, of nothing first create!_

_O heavy lightness! serious vanity!_

_Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!”_

The words struck a chord that he wasn’t expecting. Cisco had broken up with Cynthia months ago, and he swore he was getting over it. But yeah, maybe he’s been ignoring his feelings for a while, staying in to finish homework and read books or study in the library with Caitlin instead of going out and having fun like he used to. It all felt a bit pointless. Like, why bother? Love in high school was fickle. He didn’t really need anyone at seventeen. He had Barry and Caitlin. That’s really all he needed. But that’s a pretty jaded outlook on life, isn’t it? He didn’t use to be like that. 

He tripped over the next line.

Hartley snickered and Cisco felt his cheeks heat up in mortification. “Sorry.”

This was supposed to be an audition, not spill your guts through iambic pentameter hour. 

“It’s okay,” Miss Tracy said softly, leaning forward in her chair with the pen that used to be holding up her bun now between her teeth. “Continue.” 

_“Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!_

_This love feel I, that feel no love in this…”_

He took another breath, not really sure why his voice was going so thick when he looked out at the audience, focusing on Caitlin’s wide doe-eyed expression. 

_“Dost thou not laugh?”_

Cisco looked up from his script to utter silence. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Was that...good?” 

  
  


_“Good?”_ Iris echoed in disbelief after a beat. “Cisco that was _great.”_

The other drama kids chimed in, agreeing. 

Hartley huffed a long-suffering sigh. “He’ll do.” 

Miss Tracy uncapped her pen to scribble something furiously onto her notepad. The rest of the drama group stared at her, waiting for some kind of verbal confirmation.

When she didn’t say anything, Caitlin cleared her throat. “Miss Tracy?” 

She glanced up from her notes, surprised to find all her students waiting for her response. “Oh, duh. Yeah. He’s Romeo now,” she said breezily. “I’m just writing in my agenda to make his photocopies.” 

~.~ 

  
  


Cisco walked with Caitlin home after the rehearsal was over. His photocopy of the play was still hot from the machine in his hands. He flipped through it and balked. “Our school can afford cheerleading outfits and varsity jackets that look like they come from outer space but not ten books for our school play?” 

Caitlin laughed, shouldering her bag. They crossed the intersection. “I’m sure you can find the book in the library, or download the epub to your phone. That seems more your style.” 

She played with a strand of her hair, then tucked it behind her ear when they got to her house. She lived in a moderately fancy neighbourhood near the high school. His stop to get on the city bus was three blocks away. 

“Do you want to come in?” 

Cisco would, but the day has been long and Caitlin’s mom’s car was parked in her driveway. He’d never tell her to her face, but that woman still gave him the heebie-jeebies. “I think I’ll head home, actually,” he told her with an apologetic smile. “I need a nap.” 

“Okay.” Caitlin chewed on her bottom lip, looking at him intently like she had something else she wanted to say. “You know, I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had to have my first kiss with Nate or Hartley or a stranger. I’m glad it’s you.” 

She rubbed her arm and shot him another timid smile, then turned around quickly to enter her house. 

Cisco missed his bus. 

~.~ 

At the cafeteria the next day, Barry dropped his tray across from Cisco at their usual table. He screwed open his cranberry juice, then smirked at his best friend. “Iris told me you’re our new Romeo for the school play. I thought you said romance was dead.” 

Cisco stabbed at the tortellini on his plate. Cindy and her friends walked by without sparing him so much of a glance. “Yeah. Whatever. Caitlin wanted me to fill in.” 

“Don’t front,” Barry said. “Iris told me you left them all speechless. I didn’t know you had skills, man! Who knows? Maybe this performance will make you famous.” 

Leave it to Barry to overexaggerate everything. 

“It’s a high school drama club in Central City. Not the London Globe.” 

“I don’t even know what that is.” 

He huffed, taking another bite. “Okay, I’ll admit there’s a little fun in pissing off Rathaway.” 

Barry nodded along. He knew exactly what it was like having to deal with him in chemistry. The kid acted like he was the god of every subject in this school. “Yeah, and I bet it’s not so bad getting to practice the kiss over and over with Caitlin.” 

Cisco played dumb. “The...kiss?” The kiss he stared at from Act 1 Scene 5 page 6 during his bus ride for twenty minutes then watched four versions of from on-screen productions both amateur and professional on youtube to study? That kiss? Never heard of her. He drank some water or else his throat would go real dry. “Is that even really a necessary part of the script? I don’t think it is.” 

“Come on dude, it’s Romeo and Juliet. You guys _have_ to kiss.”

“Nah,” he said flippantly, pulling a face. He knew just how ridiculous he probably sounded but chose to ignore it like the petty child he could sometimes be. “I don’t think we do.” 

Barry eyeballed him weirdly. Cisco put his water bottle down and leaned over, lowering his voice. “Look, man. It’s Caitlin. I don’t _want_ to kiss her.” 

Barry frowned. “Why not?” 

“Yeah Cisco, why not?” Iris echoed, an amused smile played over her lips as she settled her bag down on the table and fished out her ham sandwich. Barry kissed her hello. 

“Because it’s Caitlin,” he hissed at them with a stink eye. “She’s my best friend. That’s awkward as hell.” 

“But you like Caitlin,” Iris told him. “You told me when we were fourteen years old. You wanted her to ask you out to the Sadie Hawkins dance but she picked Ronnie.”

“And then she got the flu so you skipped the dance to stay home with her.” 

“And then _you_ got the flu,” Iris added in. 

Cisco really regretted having only three friends his entire life. 

_“That was in eighth grade.”_

  
  


Caitlin climbed onto the bench next to Cisco. “What was in eighth grade?” 

“That science fair project we got snubbed from first place for,” he replied quickly before Iris or Barry could say anything different. 

“Oh,” she said then stole a bite of Cisco’s pasta. “Yeah. Lexi Laroche cheated. I hated that chick.” 

Iris rolled her eyes so hard at Cisco he worried they’d fall right out of her head. 

  
  


~.~ 

Miss Tracy clapped her hands to get her students’ attention. They were going to do their first full run-through, and ordered ten boxes of pizza as incentives to get the teenagers to stay so long after school. 

Caitlin folded her script in half, placing it beside her. Cisco watched her watch him eat his pizza. He swallowed, licking the stringy cheese from his mouth. “Uh,” he said. “What’s up?” 

“I pretty much have my lines all memorized,” she said. “We just need to run them together. Get you up to speed.” 

He nods. He spent some time with his auditory learning method over the past week. Instead of reading, he made himself comfy in bed and found a free version of the play to download. With his lines in his ears, he closed his eyes and imagined repeating them on stage. Tried not to imagine the itchy costume trunk he’d have to hoard through to find what he’d be wearing when he’d say them. Eventually, he drifted off, he probably had dreams about priests and balconies. 

Oh boy, that balcony scene. 

“Whaaaat?” she whined, knowing him too well. She noticed the exact moment that funny look passed over his face. Ugh. He really did need new friends. 

“Nothing,” he mumbled into his plate. His fingertips were greasy now. “Just...thinking.” 

“Thinking about what?” 

“What you said when I first got the part.” 

“That I’ll make it up to you? I haven’t figured out how yet, but I promised I would!” 

“Not that,” he said with another swallow. He’d been thinking about it too long now. It was getting muy awkward. Especially with Barry’s stupid eyebrow wagging and Iris jutting in random trivia from eighth grade whenever Caitlin was in the room. 

Why. Just why. 

_“Maybe a part of you still likes her,” Wally suggested during AP physics on Wednesday. He was the only sophomore taking upper-level courses. He was also the only non-white dude in their class. Chester switched out after that theoretical black hole project fiasco for the science fair. So anyway, they stuck together._

_  
_ _Cisco sputtered and scoffed. “Since when were you a part of this!?”_

_“Pfft. Iris tells me everything.”_

_“I don’t still like her. I never liked her. I mean duh, I like her. She’s my best friend. But I didn’t like her like her. It was just a crush sorta. It’s different. Shut up.”_

_“Uh, yeah. This refraction problem makes more sense than that.”_

“Yeah, not that,” Cisco repeated, shaking the memory of Wally butting in away. “My monologue. It’s your first kiss.” 

“Ohhh.” Caitlin’s ears went red and she giggled. Caitlin doesn’t usually giggle so he knew she was nervous. _“That_. I can’t believe it’s going to be on stage. That’s nerve-wracking.”

Oh no, she had a point. His face softened. It wasn’t his first kiss. It was just a kiss. Cisco was worrying over a kiss when Caitlin had to worry about a first kiss. Talk about priorities. He needed to take a chill pill. And a deep breath like Miss Tracy instructed them to try before a long-winded rant in old English.

He tried one, and then said the most stupid thing ever: “Caitlin, your first kiss won’t be on stage if we practise it first.” 

Her eyes went wide. “Oh!” She thought about it. “That’s true!” She shifted, uncrossing her legs and picked up her script again, flipping to the right page. “Okay. Why not? Let's do it then.” 

Wait—Did she just say—Right now? 

**Author's Note:**

> asdfghjkl i hope you enjoyed my 3k of carried away. Literally don't have anything else ready until Sunday so Wish Me Luck.


End file.
